Tag Archives: royal natal national park

Mountain folk

There’s so much more animal life occurring in the mountainous habitats of the Royal Natal National Park than the butterflies we’ve already shown you, many of them wonderfully adapted to the harsh environmental extremes at these altitudes.

African Firefinch

African Hoopoe

Female Baboon in oestrus

Unidentified Beetle

Bushbuck lamb

Bushbuck ewe

Cape Robin Chat

Cape Wagtail

Common River Frog

Familiar Chat

Fiscal Flycatcher

Freshwater Crab

Golden Orb-web Spider female with prey

Golden Orb-web Spider – male top left, female bottom right

Groundscraper Thrush

Guttural Toad

Bushbuck ewe

Guineafowl chick (photo by Joubert)

Helmeted Guineafowl (photo by Joubert)

Guineafowl chick (photo by Joubert)

Lazy Cisticola

Mountain Malachite Damselfly

Olive Pigeon

Olive Thrush

Olive Woodpecker

Red-winged Starlings

Swamp Bluet

Mating Swamp Bluets

Variable Skink

This African Wood Owl woke Marilize and me up for some bird-watching at 3am!

Feeling small in the Drakensberg

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“This mountain, the arched back of the earth risen before us, it made me feel humble, like a beggar, just lucky to be here at all, even briefly.” (Bridget Asher)

Do the mountains have the same profound impact on you as it does for us?

“These mountains, which have seen untold sunrises, long to thunder praise but stand reverent, silent so that man’s weak praise should be given God’s attention.” (Donald Miller)

The trout dam at Mahai, with Dooley Mountain and the Drakensberg’s Amphitheatre forming the backdrop

At the Queen’s Causeway on the trail to the Cascades

At sunrise, looking back from the Cascades on the Mahai River

The Cascades on the Mahai River

The Mahai Stream from the Visitor Centre, with Dooley Mountain and Tiger Falls in the background

A tranquil stretch on the Mahai stream

The view from Thendele towards the Amphitheatre and Tugela River on an overcast morning

Dooley Mountain, with Tiger Falls barely visible in the kloof

Looking up at Dooley Mountain rising above Mahai

Above the Mahai Valley, looking past Dooley Mountain towards the Amphitheatre

A bouquet from the ‘Berg

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The mountainous grasslands and forested riverbanks around Mahai in the Royal Natal National Park are adorned by the most beautiful, though hardy, plants – a treat to even the most amateurish of botanists like me; so if you can help with identifying most of these beauties I’d be forever in your debt (I know at least that mushrooms aren’t plants, strictly speaking…)

Everlasting (Helichrysum-species)

Helichrysum-species

Everlasting (Helichrysum-species)

Highveld Cabbage Tree in flower

Mushroom at the Cascades

River Lily

Wild Flowers of Royal Natal

Female cones of the Real Yellowwood (Podocarpus latifolius)

Real Yellowwood (Podocarpus latifolius)

The hills are alive… with butterflies!

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I know this is a post that will be very pleasing to several of our regular followers!

With bright sunshine and warm autumn weather in the Drakensberg the butterflies come out to play in their numbers, and we go chasing them with camera in hand. These little beauties were all fluttering around Mahai in the Royal Natal National Park on Monday.

African Monarch

Common Blue (Leptotes sp)

Forest Beauty

Gaudy Commodore (dry season form)

Green-banded Swallowtail

Marsh Commodore

Rainforest Brown

Yellow Pansy

Picturesque Camping at Mahai

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Mahai is the larger of the two camping areas at Royal Natal National Park, and there aren’t very many camping sites that can compete with it for scenic beauty!

Camping at Mahai in the Royal Natal National Park

Camping at Mahai in the Royal Natal National Park, March 2020

Isolation, the way we like it…

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With South Africa preparing for a nationwide “lock-down” of a minimum three week duration in the face of the global pandemic, we’ve returned from the Drakensberg grateful for having had a chance to recharge our batteries in beautiful natural surroundings. We’ll be sharing many more photos from our latest trip in days to come and hope that they’ll bring you as much joy as the memories will for us in these trying times.

God bless you and keep you.

Fresh air and fresh water at Royal Natal

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With a massive storm looming over the Drakensberg this evening we can look back on another fun-filled day in the great outdoors at Royal Natal.

Reflections at Mahai

The Cascades in the Mahai stream

Our 2019 in pictures

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Looking back at all the places we stayed in while exploring South Africa’s wild places in 2019!

Cottage 27, Glen Reenen Rest Camp, Golden Gate Highlands National Park, March 2019

Thendele Cottage #12, Royal Natal National Park, March 2019

Giant’s Castle, Unit 7, uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park, March 2019

Thutong Environmental Education Centre, Marakele NP, April 2019

Pretoriuskop Bungalow 116, May 2019

Hut # 2 at Skukuza’s Nwaswitshaka Research Camp

Camping at Shingwedzi, Kruger National Park, June 2019

Giant’s Castle, Unit 26, uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park, June 2019

Camping at Crocodile Bridge, Kruger National Park, September 2019

Tamboti Tented Camp, Tent # 6, December 2019

Camping at Satara, Kruger National Park, December 2019-January 2020

Autumn Highlands Holidays – uKhahlamba Drakensberg

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After kicking off at Glen Reenen in the Golden Gate Highlands National Park, the next destination on our Autumn Highlands Holidays itinerary was the uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park in Kwazulu-Natal Province – we planned to spend five nights at Thendele in the Royal Natal National Park followed by five nights at the Giant’s Castle Game Reserve.

The Drakensberg is a favourite destination for many South Africans (like us!) and international visitors alike – with such magnificent scenery and diverse activities on offer to enjoy the great outdoors it is easy to understand why! We’ve already shown off the beauty of the Amphitheatre and the Cascades but the Drakensberg has so much more to see – just look:!

Moss and ferns growing on rocks in a forest at Thendele

View northwards from behind Thendele

Mahai stream

Moss and ferns growing on rocks in a forest at Thendele

Dooley Mountain

A quiet pool on the Mahai stream

Plowman’s Kop

View towards Devil’s Hoek from below Thendele

Looking towards Thendele from the Tugela Gorge trail

Tugela River

Policeman’s Helmet

Royal Natal scenery – a wider view of the Policeman’s Helmet

Royal Natal – Dooley Mountain

Small falls in Fairy Glen

Looking from Thendele towards Mahai

One would expect that any plants occurring in the often difficult climatic conditions of the Drakensberg would be very tough and hardy – and they are, but that doesn’t mean the plants found here are any less pretty than those found in more tropical climes! We’ll be showcasing a few of them in more detail in the coming weeks.

Moss growing on the trunk of a Real Yellowwood (Podocarpus latifolius) tree in the forest at Thendele

River Lily

Beautiful Drakensberg flowers

Highveld Cabbage Tree

Grassplume in the wind

Beautiful Drakensberg flowers

Drakensberg flowers

Highveld Cabbage Trees

Various kinds of ferns adorn the trails in Royal Natal

Common Tree Ferns

Common Tree Fern

River Lilies

Beautiful Drakensberg flowers

Common Sugarbush

Common Sugarbush dot a hillside below Thendele in Royal Natal National Park

The number of invertebrates that find a home in these harsh highland habitats always astounds me – there are interesting insects and spiders to be found almost everywhere you look! You can look forward to new posts featuring a few of these in the coming weeks as well!

Unidentified large moth

Common Green Mantid

African Grass Blue butterfly

Common Blue (Leptotes sp)

Julia Skimmer Dragonfly (immature)

Golden Orb-web Spider

Rainforest Brown butterfly

Common Hottentot Skipper (males)

Common Blue (Leptotes sp)

Cupreous Blue butterfly

Gaudy Commodore butterfly (dry season form)

Drakensberg Malachite

Pea Blue butterflies

Orb-web Spider

Highland Dropwing Dragonfly

Jaunty Dropwing Dragonfly

Gold-spotted Sylph butterfly

Water Bronze butterfly

Drakensberg Malachite

Rainforest Brown butterfly

Unidentified kind of spider

Do you still remember the great fun Joubert had photographing the guineafowls in Thendele? They’re just one of 83 species of birds we managed to identify during our time in “The ‘Berg” – here’s a few more of the feathered inhabitants of the Royal Natal section of the uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park and some of them will soon feature in their own posts here at de Wets Wild.

African Olive Pigeon

Familiar Chat

Fiscal Flycatcher

Southern Black Flycatcher

Cape Wagtail

Olive Thrush

Speckled Mousebird

African Black Duck

Black-headed Heron

Cape Robin-Chat

Cape White-eye

Chorister Robin-Chat

Common Moorhen

Dark-capped Bulbul

Egyptian Geese in flight

Male Greater Double-collared Sunbird

Hadeda Ibis

Helmeted Guineafowl youngsters

Little Grebe chick

Red-collared Widowbird

Southern Boubou

White-necked Raven

White-rumped Swift

African Dusky Flycatcher

Brimstone Canary

Black Cuckooshrike Male

Golden-breasted Bunting

Lazy Cisticola

Male Southern Double-collared Sunbird (male)

Jackal Buzzard in flight over Thendele

Levaillant’s Cisticola

Male Pin-tailed Whydah (lost the trailing feathers somehow)

Verreaux’s Eagle in flight over Thendele

Spotted Eagle Owl

Cape Rock Thrush (female)

Cape White-eye

Greater Striped Swallow

Tawny-flanked Prinia

We didn’t expect to find a pair of Southern Ground Hornbills roaming the grasslands in the rain at Rugged Glen!

We’ve already shown you some of the amphibians we found at Mahai, but Royal Natal is also home to many other kinds of four-footed creatures, both cold- and warm blooded.

Baboons grooming

Baboon posing for a photo

Female baboon with baby

Cape Grey Mongoose

Bushbuck ewe with unwelcome visitors

Bushbuck ewe in hiding

Common Duiker

Rock Hyrax, or Dassie

Southern Rock Agama

Red-sided Skink

Speckled Rock Skink

Thendele is the only accommodation option in the Royal Natal National Park (campers can set up their caravans and tents at Mahai or Rugged Glen) and is built in two sections – the older Lower Camp and the newer Upper Camp. All units have lovely views of the Amphitheatre, but those units in the Upper Camp are more spacious and has more privacy. On this trip however we stayed in unit 12, a 2-bedroomed chalet in the Lower Camp, for 5 nights, and had no reason for complaint – everything was in good working order and it was a very comfortable place to rest after a day exploring the scenic splendour on offer at Royal Natal.

Thendele Cottage #12, Royal Natal National Park, March 2019

Mist settling in at Thendele as we depart for Giant’s Castle

From Thendele we departed for Giant’s Castle, further south into the Drakensberg range, on the 26th of March. We were booked to stay at Giant’s Castle for 5 nights as well, but due to me feeling quite unwell we opted to return to Pretoria after just one night there. Unfortunately this meant that we left Giant’s Castle with very few photographs, but that’s a good excuse to return soon we think!

Gate into Giant’s Castle Reserve

Giant’s Castle, Unit 7, uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park, March 2019

View from unit 7 at Giant’s Castle

Large moth of an unidentified species

Cape White-eye

Olive Woodpecker

Baboon on a wet thatch roof at Giant’s Castle

Rock Hyrax, or Dassie

Highveld Cabbage Trees forming a focal point in a wooded cluster of trees at Giant’s Castle

The Royal Natal National Park and Giant’s Castle Game Reserve are our two favourite destinations in the uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park. Both of these places can be booked through Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife.

Location of Royal Natal and Giant’s Castle (drawn with Google Maps)

Autumn Highlands Holidays – Frogging at Mahai

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We recently started nurturing more than a passing interest in South Africa’s different kinds of amphibians, adding another fascinating facet to our enjoyment of our natural heritage. When we visited the Royal Natal National Park in March the trout dam at Mahai proved an excellent spot to go looking for frogs and toads, and other aquatic life, as soon as darkness fell.

(Look out for a special feature post about the Common River Frog to be published here in early June, and follow the links for more on the Painted Reed Frog and Raucous Toad in the meantime)